There is a common thread that runs through the energy fields of people I know who have asked me for my perspective in navigating emotional turmoil. There is fear motivation that disables people from following their heart’s intuition even though they know their actions are in complete opposition to their spirit’s true knowing.

We are all spirits (light and love) with a body and not merely bodies with spirits. We are pure love energy and when we run into situations that overwhelms us (life) we grasp for safety. Safety for us is believing that everything will be “okay” and the moment it feels like it won’t be okay then fear dominates motivations/actions/reactions and when we operate from fear then we are out of alignment with our hearts which are guided by spirit, love, god, source…… however you refer. We are given experiences because we need to learn (see) certain things. It’s not about what we experience but how we relate (respond or react) to what we experience. If everything is a lesson then the question is what are you supposed to learn? Well another question involves all the other people within your experiences; what are they supposed to learn? what did their energies agree to experience before incorporating? what lessons do they have to see? Additionally, why do you think that you need to make it okay for them but not okay for you? In other words, why do you believe with your mind (not feel in your heart) that you need to forsake yourself (fearsake yourself) for the sake of others?

Perhaps it’s about letting go and learning to trust in the only truth which is that everything works out the way it’s supposed to and rarely if ever the way we expect it should. We are all born screaming into this world from birth on and are programmed to be addicted to drama and chaos by our parents who were programmed the same way by their parents and so on…..The programming is fear based (mind, ego) reactivity instead of love centered (heart, intuitive) decisions. The perspective with which you interpret and relate to the truth determines whether or not you can know peace and the more you try to control things the more you feel out of control. Why? Because you only have influence on what is happening and mistake it for control. Life is what it is and not what you think it should be. Life is fluid and has a rhythm to it and even though you may not always like it or understand it, to trust it is to know peace. To be okay with impermanence and uncertainty is to know peace.

I know that my wife Jill was supposed to leave her body almost three years ago or she wouldn’t have. To be angry about it is like yelling at the rain when it’s “supposed” to be sunny. Everything has its purpose and its okay to not know what the purpose is but with practice and seeing things for what they are alot of it comes to make sense in a peaceful way. Your path is yours to walk and although someone can walk along it with you only you can walk in it. People get sick and leave their bodies, this is the truth of human existence and perhaps rather than fearing death which can dominate your existence it’s time to embrace life for however long you have it. The more we worry the more we miss out. Worries are illusional barriers to things that don’t exist (and might not ever exist!). The past is done and happened exactly as it should have or it wouldn’t have, and the future isn’t here yet and might not ever happen the way you think it will.

I was recently asked by a friend who was amidst a storm of yuck and trying to keep it together for her kids, “How did you resolve losing your love and being at peace and being in a good place?” I didn’t resolve losing love because it didn’t die, it only shifted the way I can perceive it. I healed my numerous childhood pains and fears of abandonment, being good enough, material validation, being wanted and loved …… I can feel love all the time when I breathe into my heart and many times it comes through as Jill’s love in signals like songs, or numbers, or other ways. I don’t speak non body but I can feel it. Your heart is the best navigator of your being and when you can be aware of what your mind is trying to sabotage then take a few slow breaths and come back to heart center where your alignment is with love, god, spirit, and source….

It’s interesting that I was asked about resolving my lost love. Resolutions have already been made by many of you to begin this new year. When I look at the word I see re-solution. Trying to find a solution again to the same something that I was not able to solve before and once again running into this pattern that does not serve your spirit. You see, when you attempt to solve with your mind a pattern that was imprinted in you then you are trying to think your way through something that can’t be thought through. That doesn’t work because it is putting a bandage or cover up on a wound that has deep emotional roots. I know that you only want to be “happy” and feel the good stuff but without feeling all your feelings then you will never know true joy and peace but instead temporary states of distraction disguised as satisfaction.

You eat or drink too much because……… you don’t feel worthy or handsome or pretty? you are stuffing down or numbing emotions that you can only suppress with distraction? you don’t believe you deserve to be loved? You put everyone else before yourself because…. you don’t value your own feelings as much as others? you feel loved and validated when you make others “happy”? you are afraid to speak up for your needs because you are afraid you won’t be loved or will be abandoned? Why do you believe that changing yourself from the outside in will make you happy? See what I mean? Your patterns are heart rooted disruptions that have been festering since childhood and presents themselves in a plethora of sabotaging ways. And this tangled infection of reactive emotions steers you precariously through your existence. When you only change the circumstance and not the pain then you can only elude sadness but cannot escape it.

Are you ready, once and for all, to get to the root of the problem instead of ping ponging yourself through however much time you have left in your body? Of course you are. You’re always ready and right now is the time to start where you are. First: slow inhale, pause at the top, equally slow exhale; three times. Next is feel how your energy comes down into your heart space and grounds you to the earth again. You’ll notice that your head isn’t racing in circles as much when you slowly breathe. Have you ever noticed that when your mind is racing you hold your breath? Noticing this is recognizing a pattern in you. You now understand what it is like to recognize a pattern in yourself that doesn’t serve you without judging it as good or bad, or right or wrong; just seeing it for what it is. This is how to begin the process of healing. Your willingness to see your patterns with compassion and non judgment is the beginning of healing.

It took me a solid year of feeling all feelings no matter how ugly they got, and they were horrible at times (wailing on the floor for hours until my bronchial tubes ached), for me to get through to a deep knowing contentment and peace. I no longer get tossed by life’s waves but instead have learned to accept them for what they are and learn to surf more and more. You don’t learn to surf if you are not willing to fall down and get up and choke on water along the way. I would not change any part of my experiences as I have gratefully come to know and like myself as I have not ever in my decades of existing. I promise you that I did not like all the experiences and I can see how stuck I was and I am thankful. When I look back I see that one year of investment in my heart and spirit healing and all the pain it brought up and finally released was less painful than a lifetime of carrying it around and creating more pains from it. When we try to run from our sadness we create more sadness but from heartbreak you will find hearbreakthrough. One last perspective for you to consider; you don’t get physically out of or into shape overnight and the same goes for your emotional/spiritual shape as well. Wishing you peace, love, friendship, and joy. namaste

Some thoughts came through after reading a quote by Victor E. Frankl; “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Yes! The difference between a reaction and a response is breathing. Reaction is ingrained emotional, mental, patterned, and triggered. Response is heart centered and calm and has an intuitive awareness.

When you see the hook dangling in front of you wanting to push your buttons or triggers it’s the ability to recognize and taking three slow breaths that enables you to heart-center and process. If you react then you’re already hooked and willingly participating in a pattern that doesn’t serve you. When you re-act then you are acting again (behaving from ingrained pattern usually since childhood) in the same way to the same thing of a different color. With practice, recognition, and awakening awareness you can then decide if it warrants a response or maybe it’s just their own stuff being thrown at you. It takes constant practice and doesn’t always pull through. It’s recognizing the intuitive flags that come up from your heart space in lieu of the fear worries that distort the truth of the present moment.

When I get hooked, which I still do but much less, I’m able to recognize and release quicker but not always before taking a bite. Life is so interesting and it’s good to remember that our emotional adult selves are reacting from our unresolved or unacknowledged childhood fears, pain, sadness, and traumas and no one is exempt. Suffering is a part of being human but it does not mean we have to always suffer. We can shift it. It takes dedication and willingness to look directly at your shadows.

The interesting thing for me is that my fear of my pains and fear of them never ending once I open to them is much worse than the never ending pain sadness and suffering I had endured for decades. I was so emotionally broken a couple of years ago that I decided that one or two years of dedication towards healing and changing that which does not serve would much better than continuing to survive life with all my bags. I can assure you that you will come out of the darkness and your world will feel lighter and worryless.

And finally; it’s good to consider the source; if a schmuck calls you an idiot, how much weight does it have? Your mind was not created to eclipse your heart’s wisdom. Start where you are by tuning in and watching your windy mind. “You are the sky and everything else is just the weather.” As my friend Charlie once told me “no feeling is good or bad or right or wrong and if you find that it doesn’t serve you anymore then maybe you will make a shift, or maybe you won’t.” What I share is my experience and learning and perhaps it will resonate with you, or not. Enjoy now because it’s already gone, this is always a choice.

~namaste and may all beings have a balanced day

I’ve been feeling my way through lots of deeply ingrained layers of pain and sadness for the last two years and it has been an active and many times terrifying process. I have intentionally gone towards my pain, sadness, fear, and worry to allow them full expression so I can truly unburden my spirit and shift my patterns that were learned as a child. There is no other way to really know peace and equanimity (staying in middle ground). I do not say this lightly and understand that many believe that affirmations, meditation, yoga, optimism, self help books, life coaches, good deeds, and altruism can do this unburdening but I tell you no. Just because you read a manual on how to fly a plane doesn’t mean that you can fly a plane and just because someone is telling you all the right phrases and coaching tools does not mean they have done the work themselves. It’s a lot easier to tell someone else to do something difficult than actually do it themselves. Too many talk the talk but don’t actually walk it. I do think that these are wonderful tools that help and I completely support them and also know that they can not remove or undo our samsaras (deeply ingrained pain bodies), only we can by healing the roots of the pain. I learned that walking through the darkness is the only way to get to the light and it requires breathing, awareness, daily practice, and trust.

I had spent my entire life running from my sadness and fear and pain and did everything I could to avoid feeling it until my wife Jill died in April 2011. If I thought I knew what sadness and fear and pain was before that I was truly mistaken as the heartbreak that occurred was intolerable and constant. I was dragged down into a darkness of being that can not be described with words. Guttural wailing that left me prostrate on the kitchen floor, emotional pain surges that had me standing butcher knife to chest wondering if I should hit the floor or not, and a deep abandonment that left me drained of all life force. A continual state of deep, profound perturbation. This pattern of horror ensued for months until I began to stop trying to fight the waves and instead allow them their full expression. Fight or flight slowwwwwly became let go or be dragged. I knew that breathing was a key to getting through the rogue waves that battered my spirit’s shores and also knew that somewhere out there is a light(ness) and that I wanted to know it. After spending my life avoiding pain I decided it was time to try it differently as my old ways did not serve me and I had nothing left to lose. I began to read spiritual guidance books that provided different perspectives and tools for me to work with my emotions rather than try to stop them and intentionally did what I could to trigger my pain bodies so I could allow them full expression for the first time and also look at them and see what the roots were. Stopping feelings is like trying to stop the wind or yelling at the rain; not gonna happen. It just keeps coming and no matter what I do to elude them, I can never escape them. The book that resonated with me is ‘The Places That Scare You, A Guide To Fearlessness In Difficult Times’ by Pema Chodron. I also began to write which was another important and effective tool. I learned to stay with the feelings that came in without judging them or trying to push them out with happy thoughts. Nothing in my mind could fix my heart because it my mind was a noisy place that caused my suffering and wanted nothing more than my heart and spirit to continue suffering so it could stay in charge of my being.

My friend Charlie (www.MeetingWithCharlie.com) once said “no feeling is good or bad or right or wrong, it just is what it is and if you find it doesn’t serve you anymore perhaps you will make a shift, or not.” Learning to trust that these feelings were waves that come in and go out took practice and trust. Understanding somewhere in my core self that I am part of nature and that nature has a rhythm to it and even if I don’t like or understand it or what’s happening, I still trust it. Why not? Nothing else up that point in my life was working for me, other than my amazing love with Jill which still had childhood patterns tightly intertwined into my adult relationship. Another tool I added to my spiritual belt is yoga. The connection of mind, body, and spirit through physical movement. It requires breathing, and presence, and willingness to stay with discomfort, and allowing the thoughts and feelings that arise during practice to come in and go out without latching onto them. All verbalized each time by the yogi leading the practice. Yoga edified the lessons I had learned through introspection, writing, and staying in it. I have taken what I learn in the yoga studio and combined it with my own inner work to use out of the studio in what I call “life’s yoga, the daily practice of being”. Lessons such as the pose begins when you want to get out of it, which translates to, when emotions bubble up that I do not want to feel I have to be willing to stay with them.

Recently there is a theme that has been a topic of conversation with most people with whom I come in contact with who want to talk. It’s about worry, which is fear, which stems from not wanting to feel something “bad” because it makes us feel hurt or sad or alone. We talk about all the noise and wind that comes into our minds as a way to avoid feeling whatever comes into our hearts and spirits. We talk about patterns that are created in us from the time we are born screaming into this world. Patterns that are ingrained in us by parents who, with their own emotionally unresolved patterns, ingrain them into our emotional wiring and we then grow into adults who react to the same emotional triggers as when we were children. Our fears of not being loved, abandonment, being liked, having value, and whatever else you can think of are still there until we go towards these triggers and look at them, from where they come, and do they still serve us now. Having mind body awareness is a key to recognizing these patterns and that comes with breath. Having awareness to recognize that “uh oh here is something that is making me feel a certain way” gives the opportunity to take a breath which helps to see the pattern of trigger and reaction. Having awareness to take three slow inhale, pause, exhales to provide the space for heart and spirit to become the influence over our being in lieu of our windy minds. Having willingness to stay with uneasiness or discomfort or pain or fear or sadness in order to release it/them. As we discuss these things there is sometimes defensiveness that arise like “I’ve already looked at it and I don’t want to deal with it anymore” or “ I just want to be happy and not think about the bad stuff” or “What good will it do to rehash the past” or “ I just try to live in the present moment”. All this is noise, wind that our minds create so we don’t have to go into our heart space because it is a part of us that we are not comfortable residing in. I look at it like this. When I first began yoga I couldn’t even come close to touching the floor in forward fold and certainly did not want to stay in half pigeon or frog as it was so uncomfortable that I would fidget and forget to breathe and think, think, think which made the poses more uncomfortable and more painful and more difficult. The yoga teacher leading the practice would tell us to breathe, allow the thoughts to come in and out like clouds passing without grabbing onto them or judging them, and the more we relax into the pose the easier it gets, just stay with it. All of this the antithesis of what my mind and body was telling me to do. So I offer this thought to you. If you find that you are tired of being ruled by negative thoughts and emotions, are at a spiritual crossroad, or emotionally broken and scared then please practice some of life’s yoga that I have presented today. See your heart and spirit as a newbie to life’s yoga and understand that it can’t do a forward fold right off the bat. But with awareness, breath, writing, and daily practice your heart/spiritual muscle will become more willing to stay with discomfort as it strengthens through the willingness to be vulnerable. Understanding that our heart/spiritual muscle has not ever really been exercised in a healthy way and it did not become cumbered in cloaks of pain overnight. With practice your heart will be palming the ground in a forward fold that will create a space and lightness of being that you have never known. You will be free of fear and worry and sadness and open to an aliveness and joie de vive that we thought impossible. Wishing you peace, love, friendship, and joy. Slow inhale, pause, slow exhale. namaste

I’ve been mending for three plus weeks from a severe lower spine/sciatic nerve injury and it has been a painful gift, yes a gift.

I have had a tenuous back for a long time now due to years of heavy landscape construction and have suffered many times from outages that had me howling and afraid to move. All of that was nothing compared to this. The crippling pain I’ve recently experienced reduced me to barely crawling at home and my incredible mom doing everything for me. I do like being nurtured and I’m not used to being taken care of. I was always the hunter gatherer taking care of everyone else, especially Jill and especially in the last seven months from medical dumbassness to her death two years ago.

I had grown up going to the hospital many, many times with my orthopedic emergency surgeon dad and was conditioned to detach from people’s pains so the work that needed to be done could get done. I have realized that I did this in some part with Jill when she was ill. I was loving and protective but not connected to her pain, which is something I now would welcome.

I knew that she was suffering as she “healed” and yet I still continued to do what “had/needed” to be done to take care of us and her and our home and business and clients and employees and life and yada yada yada. I can see now that I was avoiding connecting to her pain because I had spent my entire life not wanting to feel mine. I did not want to remember my childhood, my abuse, my betrayal. I did not want to own that I was scared of everything and terrified of not being liked or accepted or being good enough.

All this would’ve had to surface if I tapped into her pain, so I didn’t.

I cry as I write this last line because it could have been beautiful to be present in all moments of her pain and her fear and her not knowing. I took great care of her and supported her in every way I knew. I do not regret who or how I was and understand that it what supposed to be like that or it would not have been like that. To be angry at what was supposed to happen or wishing it was different is like yelling at the rain. For what? If it wasn’t supposed to happen, it would not have, period.

I was not given the gift of connecting with my deeply ingrained pain and patterns until Jillie left. Her leaving her body was my gift. This is now obvious to me and took a lot of looking inward and getting to understand the roots of my own pain to get from there to here and… I would do it again. I love Jill with all my heart and spirit and would not want her and our life back (if that was even possible) if it meant me being the same person that I was because that person was not really alive to life and I’d likely stroke out from all the doing and running from myself. I’d venture to guess that her parents and brother and friends would not like to hear this from me. Perhaps this is selfish but considering that I spent my life in fearful “selfless” service of others I am glad to have this healthy, balanced heart centered thought. This is the first time in my life that I like all of who I am and am not fearful of what life may or may not be. “No feeling is good or bad or right or wrong, it just is what it is and if it doesn’t serve you anymore then maybe you’ll make a shift, or not.” My friend Charlie said this to me right after I stopped them from trying to revive Jill for the last time. I somehow already knew this but was not ready to make any shift yet. I stayed in take care of business mode (cremation, services), took pills, and avoided everything except the constant and sometimes rogue waves of horror that crashed my spirit’s shores without invitation.

After some months of checking way out by any means possible I began to slowly, breath by breath, learn to stay with the waves until they were done, allowing whatever feelings their fullest expression. Along with journaling (which I was always terrified to do as somebody else might find it!) and introspection I began to feel small shifts. Some subtle self awareness was beginning to kick in. I always knew that we only need a body to be here and realized that my karma this time around included an agreement with Jillie (pre-corpus) that we would come together this lifetime, know unconditional love, and then she would leave so I could unburden my spirit’s heavy cloak of pain and shame and know peace and joy instead of bouts of harmony and temporary states of pleasure. What a trade off, to lose the woman I love to finally love the person that I am. Thank you to Jill and Ian for agreeing to this. To be able to spend the rest of my physical days (which can end at any moment) with awareness and peace and joy is worth the pain I had to look at and the sorrow I had to fully embrace.

I learned that I cannot stop feeling the “bad/sad/painful” feelings without also preventing feeling the “good/happy/peaceful” feelings. Shut down one part means shut down all parts and anything else is kidding myself. This does not mean that I do not get thrown off or that patterns don’t still arise, but when they do I am not attached to them or judging them and can allow them to have their noisy gusts and then move on. So now when the wind in my mind blows it doesn’t make my emotional/spiritual hairs stay in full tilt for the rest of my day or week or life. I learned that the key to staying with uneasiness is breathing and letting go. Slow inhales and slow exhales, allowing the opportunity for space for my body and soul to process what it needs to so I don’t have to keep repeating the same thing over and over. A Buddhist monk was once asked what he had learned in his decades of practice to which he responded “to be okay with impermanence and uncertainty is to know peace.” I know that what isn’t and what was and what may or may not be keeps me from being present so to stay mindful without a full mind is a great thing to practice. It is practice, a lifelong yoga of being practice.

Another lesson from my injury is ego which loves a windy mind. A painful lesson in knowing better yet not listening to my inner heart centered guidance. My back was already aching from three weeks before this injury when I “went for it” in yoga class, I call it class this time because if I had really been practicing then I would not have gotten hurt the first time. I “went for it” because I was thinking (not actually tuning in feeling) “strong” that day. I wasn’t present with my body and breath and wanted to max out my moves and be the “man” in a class of women. I wanted to show that whatever they could do, I could do as well or better and I know they don’t care anyway. I did the contrary of what yoga is about. Yoga is really about about proving or judging but being and acknowledging where I am at the present moment. Mind/body/heart connectivity. A private practice within a group setting.

Had I not taken my own bait again this time it’s likely I wouldn’t have learned this once and for all and continue in the pattern. And I didn’t learn it from that day in class or a few weeks later when I dragged a small shrub a few feet to a co-worker because I didn’t want to be perceived as weak or superior. I only learned/saw it this week when I started to amble, not yet walk, with less pain and no drugs. I learned it only when I decided to look at why I got hurt. Were there lessons in it? Of course, everything is a lesson and everyone is my teacher.

The lessons are the same ones I have been practicing since Jillie left. Breathe, slow down and be present with whatever I am doing, there is nothing to prove, I am a good person, and true strength is in knowing and liking myself. A true spiritual warrior has a vulnerable heart and humble spirit. I’m glad for all that life offers and thankful that I am able to, after decades of sleeping my way against life, participate in it consciously, gratefully, peacefully, and with equanimity. namaste